


The Apple of Your Eye

by fivers



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Developing Friendships, Dysfunctional Family, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Genderfluid Character(s), Mental Health Issues, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, No Incest, Nonbinary Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reincarnation, Self-Insert, Sibling Bonding, Trans Character(s), Violence, basically SIOC does NOT want to get involved with the plot, but gets dragged screaming into caring for the charlotte fam anyways, oc-insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26819101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivers/pseuds/fivers
Summary: See, it was a mistake - she definitely did not sign up for this rebirth nonsense, much less dealing with 85 younger siblings. This is Ringo: cheerful, mischievous, child-wrangler extraordinaire, and the very unfortunate sole cousin to the chaotic Charlotte family.(SI/OC-insert, semi-AU)
Relationships: Charlotte Family & Original Character(s), Charlotte Katakuri & Original Character(s)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 220
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts





	1. prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: implied/referenced underage pregnancy and attempted sexual assault, some graphic descriptions of violence. Mild manga spoilers?

**01.**

It starts with a picture, of all things.

He's four years old and his fingers are tangled in his Mama's cloak. It's cold, freezing even. The layers of robes and makeshift jackets do nothing to block out the cutting chill of the wind. Every step in the snow crunches under his feet as he struggles to keep up with the pace, stubby legs unsteady but nevertheless toddles along.

It's not until they pass by a tavern that something changes. There's laughter from inside, yellow light washing against the thick snow as cheers and crashes start. Mama flinches before she pulls him away to duck around the corner, where a brick wall stretches high above ground; filled to the brim with newspaper clippings, yellow paper and messy drunken scrawls.

And among them - a whole lot of bounty posters.

He pauses when Mama comes to an abrupt stop in her tracks, and watches as she shuffles forward, hands tracing the pockmarked papers until it slows to a pause on one particular poster.

Charlotte Linlin, 400 million beri.

_(Yonko of the New World-)_

Dead or alive.

_(...the ruler of Totto… Land...?)_

Mama shakes, and years later he can't recall if it was out of fear or grief. But what he does remember is being gently drawn into the warm embrace of his mama's cloak, the soothing strokes of her hands, and the soft, horrified whisper through the layers of fabric:

"Oh, Linlin."

It's weeks after that encounter, and as the two of them are travelling on a worn dirt road with directions to the next town, and the Something that's been nagging in the back of his head that he can't quite put a name on finally reaches a boiling point. When the memory and realisation slams into _her_ in full, concentrated force.

_(Charlotte Linlin, who ate an entire orphanage in a fit of misplaced excitement. Who kills giants with her bare hands. It's been quite some time since she caught up to the manga- when was she? The beginning of the Totto Land Arc? There're still bits of spoilers floating by her blog's dashboard-)_

"Fuck." Ringo blanches, and it is admittedly louder than he intended to as his Mama spins around with a look of amused horror. It gets him a firm bonk on his head and a promise to watch his language. At least, until he's old enough to curse.

Charlotte Ringo is born the first and only son of Charlotte Yinyin, sister to Charlotte Linlin. In hindsight, this should not be possible, because Big Mom does not have a sibling. She was abandoned on an isle by her parents and later went on to have eighty-five children, or that's how the original story goes.

But in this one, it goes like this:

Once upon a time, a pair of twin sisters were born in a small faraway kingdom that smells of fresh bread and the sea. Yinyin and Linlin - named after silver and forest-jade, a pair of auspicious names that were passed down in the Charlotte household through generations; a set of beautiful names for a set of beautiful twins.

They had good parents - Father was a successful merchant and Mother's bakery was the best in town. Their neighbours were kind, few batting an eye at the twins and their unusual size, often giving them treats and snacks to the chagrin of their mother.

The twin sisters were close, never found apart from each other for too long. Clothes, desserts and coloring books were shared between them without much of a fuss. The older sister was a quiet but sweet thing while the younger was loud and boisterous, yet both were just as mischievous and the source of their mother's headache. But their little household was happy, and there was that.

Life was good.

Until one particular morning- and what an unfortunate morning it was; Father was out on a job and Mother was busy with the bakery. It was the holidays, you see, and business was blooming, so Yinyin made a decision and left to deliver their mother's forgotten lunchbox. Sweet little Linlin was left alone in the house, a promise to wait for her return. There would be a fresh batch of custard cream cake Mother would bring back from the bakery, and Linlin has been looking forward to it for weeks.

Except that Yinyin lost her way in the huge town and the crowd at the bakery was bigger than they anticipated, so Mother has her hands full with customers. And so Linlin, with no breakfast and a growing hunger pang in her belly, who puts away at least five times more food than the average human being does, waits.

And waits.

And waits, and waits, until the hours tick by and morning trickles to evening and-

She _craves_.

When Charlotte Yinyin was five, her little sister was banished from the kingdom.

(With half the town levelled and destroyed in the fiery destruction, and countless casualties yet to be dug out, the damage was done.)

There weren't many good days after that.

The house was quiet now. Mother spends more and more time away at the bakery and Father barely comes home, and the few hours he does he sits in his study with a bottle of alcohol in his hands as he disappears behind the doors. Yinyin busies herself with cleaning the house, afraid to leave, avoiding the hushed gazes of their neighbours.

("Just for a few weeks, sweetling." Mother had said, not quite looking at her in the eyes. "We'll be right back before you know it."

Father lingers behind her. She shares a final hug with her twin, her little sister. Linlin smiles brightly and chatters about how exciting it is, to go on the trip with Mother and Father and oh, it's an island they've never been to before! I'll be sure to bring back presents for you!

Yinyin, five years old and starry-eyed at her sister's promises, never quite got the wrong feeling in her guts to settle, long after the ship disappears pass the horizon. Weeks later, her parents return alone.

She never sees Linlin again.)

When Charlotte Yinyin is eight, three years after her sister is gone, the kingdom chases her family out with fire and pitchforks and guns. Only Mother and her made it out alive by the skin of their teeth. With what little belongings they salvaged, they flee on a ship to another island, far away from here.

She spends the next few years in a haze, scraping by to survive as they travel from island to island, never quite staying for too long and avoiding the hunters that might recognise her face and the shade of pink hair they both possess. She stays away when Mother spits at bounty posters and starts cursing under her breath, often deep in the night, unaware that Yinyin is pretending to sleep.

Mother does not talk about it, and by this point Yinyin's learned to not ask. She doesn't ask when mother takes her to the ship's bathroom in the middle of the night. She doesn't ask when her hair was shorn short. She doesn't ask when Mother dyes both of their pink locks into a pitch black. It wasn't until she catches a glimpse of a discarded newspaper on a barrel, amongst blood and wood and paper that she finds out; a bounty poster of 100 million, and an identical face to herself staring back at her.

Charlotte Linlin, dead or alive.

Mother succumbs to disease and fatigue when Yinyin was thirteen. She cries and cries until her eyes are dry and the captain of the ship pulls her away so they can put her Mother's body on a small rowboat to burn in a sea burial. She gathers what little she has left - her Mother's old handkerchief, red and dotted and stark against her once pink hair, and wanders alone on her own since then.

The end.

On the good nights, when it was quiet and there's fruits and fresh fish roasting by the soft crackles of the campfire, Ringo would lay his tiny head on Yinyin's lap, and listens quietly as Yinyin recounts the story that she has told over countless times, feeling fingers treading through his hair.

"I would have wanted you to meet her," Yinyin says, lovingly untangling the knots in Ringo's hair with an old hairbrush. She massages the black oil-powder mix into the locks, where pink is staring to peek out at Ringo's scalp. "She was a wild child, but sweet and thinks nothing but the best for people."

_(Fire, and a cruel, cruel smile.)_

"...but she's a pirate, mama."

Yinyin shakes her head, a bittersweet smile on her lips as she ties the red dotted cloth into her son's hair. It's getting longer and longer. "I know, sweetling. But family is family, and what sort of mother would I be to keep you from ours?"

 _Your sister is a narcissistic psychopath,_ was what he wants to say. The sad note he hears in Yinyin's voice, however, has him biting his lips instead.

He likes his mother, truly.

Yinyin is young. Too young, in his opinion. A single mother at only twenty years old, yet instead of abandoning a baby that would be nothing more than a deadweight in her situation, she chose to take him along. Raised him by herself, even.

That, Ringo thinks, is something he can respect.

And even if he starts seeing flashes- fleeting memories of his previous life; of faceless and nameless people that he knows that he once loved, but can never remember - like the very memory and substance of them was hollowed out and replaced with a blurred outline that merely takes up space in his mind, just enough for him to be aware of but never truly understanding what they were; even if he just can't seem to think of Yinyin as his mother since that day, Ringo continues playing his role as the well-behaved, polite son.

He gathers sticks and logs for their camp and sleeps light enough to periodically feed the fire, helps Yinyin dig for edible shoots and roots, and learn to climb trees for fruits. He does not throw tantrums like a child. When they stop by towns, he sticks close, and quick to spot Yinyin if they were separated in crowds and return to her side, figuring that he should at least spare the woman from having to worry about him. She has enough on her plate as it is, trying to keep them both alive.

And Ringo certainly does not let her know about his recurring dreams- especially the ones where he catches something akin to brief flashes of… an accident.

_(Exhaustion, lack of sleep. Her legs shaky. The blaring of horns. Lights blinding her eyes as something drives towards her-)_

On those nights when he wakes up, soundless and as if resurfacing from water, Ringo traces his ribs, feels the way his skin curves around his bones.

And he counts.

It is only until he's sure that Yinyin is fully asleep that Ringo creeps to the small rucksack they have and pulls out the Scrapbook.

It is a poor thing; Battered, torn and taped back together, soaked and dried and frosted over, but it still miraculously held on. It's just shy of a few inches to fit in Yinyin's palm, but she treats it all the same - gently, and almost lovingly, as she fits what scraps of newspaper clippings she can in them. These days, it is Ringo who takes over the scrapbooking, since her hands has gone weak and unsteady.

(Ringo isn't familiar with the written language of this new world yet, but he is sure that all of them, without a doubt, are about Charlotte Linlin. From her early days of infamy to the terror she is now, each strip is carefully fitted onto each page of the book, now thick enough for mismatched scraps to stick out from between the torn pages.)

It is on those nights where Ringo tries to remember as much as he can remember about One piece, about the characters- the people of this world. Pirates and marines. About the storylines and arcs.

Tries is the keyword here, because no matter how many hours he spends trying to scrape the information from within his mind, it simply does not work. Not in the way where you forget things- no, it's just that it's _not there_.

Ringo knows with an absolute certainty that he has read One Piece, that his reincarnation and her past life is real and most definitely not a figment of his imagination, probably. That it was a colorful story in a book full of pictures, and that somewhere within are the words Whole Cake Island Arc and Big Mom herself and the horrifying fact that she has way too many children to mistreat, but that's literally _it_.

It's… frustrating, needless to say. There goes his contingency plans for the future.

Still, he tries.

So sometimes, Ringo sits by the fire and cracks open the book, soaking in the pictures of his aunt's fiery, bottomless smile as she cuts down crews and islands alike. He thinks of the same kind smile tugging at Yinyin's lips, thinks of his dreams, and wonders:

_How?_

A beat, then-

_Why?_

Reincarnation: noun

1\. the rebirth of a soul in another body.

_(Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes, you don't._

_...but for fuck's sake -_ A Charlotte _? Seriously?)_

Being a boy, he finds, isn't that bad. Aside from the additional body parts he's painfully aware of during the first few days after the initial surge of memories, and fumbling whenever he needs to pee, there's really not much difference in how his clumsy toddler body moves. If anything, he's damn glad he doesn't have to worry about bleeding and developing breasts in the future. It's the one thing he doesn't miss from his past life.

...And also the fact that boys are less likely to be targeted by the slave traders of this world. A small percentage, but still.

So he embraces it. Calls himself "he" out of sheer convenience. It's what Yinyin had been calling him since his birth- no need to complicate things, now.

(And if he neither corrects nor confirms when someone says "he" or "she", well. No one needs to know about that.)

When Ringo is five, he cracks open a rock with his bare fist.

It was an accident, he swears. A knee-jerk reflex when you feel a light skittering prick your arm. For all the times they had slept under the starts with grass and hard mud against their backs, he has never quite gotten over the sensation of bugs crawling over his skin.

He's _not_ afraid, thankyouverymuch, but it is still a gross feeling.

Therefore, it is unsurprising that Ringo, half-engrossed in skewering the fish for dinner, did not think twice before lashing his arm out to shake the bug off. The boulder was just unfortunate to be in striking distance when he slams into it, and-

It explodes into dust and pieces with a thunderous crack.

...ah.

" _Ringo!"_

One part of his rational mind freezes like a deer caught in the headlights because, out of all possible things to expect when you slam your arm into solid rock - bruising pain, your brain chanting at you about how stupid you are, what a _genius_ move - shattering a five feet tall boulder into nothing was, to be frank, not on the list.

The other part, however, promptly decides that he's way too tired for this bullshit to make sense just as Yinyin's urgent footsteps stops beside him, speechless as Ringo too, drinks in the sight of the demolished rock.

"...Well now," Yinyin says, a hint of sadness tinged in it. "You are a Charlotte, after all."

_Well, shit_ , he thinks.

Afterwards, it's like his body has unlocked a forgotten function. A very, uncontrollable function.

Ringo manages to crack six whole logs and nine rocks five times the size of him in the span of two weeks. Campfire fuel and edible roots, crushed in his hands. Fruits he spent half a day gathering, picking them each as if he's carrying glass, were squished by his fingers in a moment of carelessness. Yinyin has forbade him from entering towns with her, instead leaving him somewhere in the outskirts waiting for her.

"It's safer out here," Yinyin had said, patting him on his head. "Love you, miss you, I'll be right back before you know it."

Goddammit- it's like being thrown into a new body again. He's only barely managed to get used to his current one - biology aside, it's like wearing a suit too small with limbs that don't quite cooperate. Except, this time it's worst, like he's swinging two toy hammers attached to the ends of his arms that destroys things on contact.

He's about to scream and chuck himself into the sea for a good old-fashioned rage quit, when Yinyin looks up at him from where she is cleaning his hands from his latest accident, and hums: "I'm going to show you the rock exercise."

Ringo jerks out of his thoughts. "-the what?"

Yinyin puts away the cloth, one hand still holding onto his, and reaches down to the ground. Then, she drops a small, grey rock into his palm.

"You take a small rock in your hands- like this." She says, curling his fingers close. "Then, squeeze your hands."

The rock, in a fashion similar to its unfortunate, larger cousin from two weeks ago, explodes into dust in his fingers.

"Again," She says, offering another rock to him. "Close your fingers one by one. Slower- no, _slower_. Gentler."

This time, Ringo tenses, feeling every nerve in his palm lighting up as he takes a deep breath. And he squeezes again.

In the end, it takes him twenty-three rocks. He shatters all but the last one, where he finally managed to simply crack it into somewhat blunt, pebble-sized pieces instead of crushing it into fine sand.

Yinyin smiles at him in a way that says this woman has seen it before and then some, and patted him on the head. "Good job. Now, you just got to practice."

So he does.

He alternates between two main exercises each day: first, destroy a couple of boulders and trees on purpose to get a feel of the amount of power his hands possess. Then, holding himself back as he squeezes rocks after rocks, doing his best to not annihilate them into powder. An average of twenty-five stones is sacrificed each day, and when there's not enough he substitutes them with bundles of twigs and leaves thrice as thick as his arm.

Eventually, after several more weeks and months of practice, Ringo manages to start breaking rocks into tiny pieces more often. Then into medium pieces, then a quarter, then merely spitting them in half.

Yinyin starts allowing him to carry their necessities again, offloading more and more alongside his progress. This, together with the exercise, had helped him in figuring out the limitations to his strength at both end-spectrums - which is far from small, judging from his accidents - and learn how to use it to his advantage, fine-tuning his strength control.

When he finally manages to merely put a crack into a fist-sized rock, Yinyin starts allowing Ringo to follow her into the forests to gather food from then on, instead of waiting by the campfire, so there was that.

(A pack of wolves corners him and Yinyin in the middle of the night weeks later, and he shatters their skulls in, like crumpled paper. Aside from him emptying his lunch in a bush afterwards, Ringo decides that it's not all bad.)

A few weeks after his sixth birthday, Ringo makes an unexpected friend.

He steals a talking albatross from the island's black market alongside a crate of food, and a couple of coin pouches he managed to snatch on the way. He's thinking of how dinner preparations should go (stuffed bird with herbs found by the roadside, or grilled with simple salt and vegetables) when the bird starts cussing him out, banging against the cage it's locked in and giving Yinyin the shock of her life.

Many minutes of yelling and wrestling with the bird later, a result of him unlocking the cage and the bird leaping at him with weeks of simmering fury, they find themselves sitting by the fire, with Ringo listening to its chatter as they sip on bowls of soup.

"The name's Morgans, and don't you dare forget it!" It- no, _he_ shrieks, waving his spoon at him.

"I'm Ringo. Sorry for trying to eat you."

"You better!" A pause, "And what kind of mother names their kid after a _fruit_?"

Morgans, as Ringo comes to learn, is an aspiring journalist. He cusses about his kidnappers and complains about being set back for several weeks before he reaches the nearest news station, with the intention to start as an intern. "The current news is a disgrace," he hisses, "All lies and propaganda paid by the World Government. Cowards, the lot of them!"

For someone that's only two years older than him, Ringo's impressed at the number of complex words he says with relatively ease. Reincarnation or not, even he has some trouble with pronunciation at his current age.

Yinyin chuckles and pats his feathered head, despite his embarrassed squawk. Ringo nods solemnly. "If you have the guts to do something, owning up to it shouldn't be an issue. Or just don't get caught in the first place."

"Exactly!"

They strike up a sort of camaraderie. Morgans, unable to transform back thanks to his seastone shackles ("What do you mean you can't fly?"), finds himself perching on Ringo's head more often than not, chattering away as they travel from island to island. He fills the void of silence as easily as breathing, voice a comfort to his ears. Mama enjoys his presence too, and it's amusing to see him flush whenever he's given a compliment.

At some point he slips, calling Yinyin Auntie. The term sticks, of course, but not without teasing. One amused side-eye from him would bait him into puffing up his feathers like a chicken.

"Someday, I will make my own news and publish papers and I'll bow to _no one._ " Morgans says, one night. There's an air of challenge and pride in his sharp eyes - a promise. "Even the World Government will scramble before my feet, begging me to cover up their mistakes, kuwahahaha!"

"You're seven and you sound like a second-rate comic book villain."

It earns Ringo a stutter and a sniff. "Yeah, well, when I print my own newspapers and make a comic strip series, the villain would sound just like that and people would _love it._ I'll make you eat your words!"

"Sure. Would he start stuttering when he's around pretty women too, just like how you get when you talk to Mama?"

Yinyin has to pull them apart later, but it's worth it to see the shade of red peeking through his feathers.

At seven, Ringo learned what it felt like to kill a man.

It goes like this: they've been starving for days, and Yinyin was unwilling to head into town with the rumours of bounty hunters prowling about. But she's growing weaker and weaker, and Ringo, with the blood of the Charlotte's flowing in his veins, feels the same desperate, dizzying hunger _eating_ away at his guts as Big Mom did when she fasted for seven days. It's enough for him to sneak into town to steal some bread, despite Morgan's warnings. Anything to eat. Anything.

So he grows careless in the face of desperation.

A group of men corners him in an alley, and there's a hand gripping a fistful of his hair as he scatters the bread and scraps of meat in her hands to the ground, tiny body helpless against a full-grown man. He smells like smoke and piss and laughs about how lucky he is, stupid little kid, and oh, he can't wait to drag him to the marines, or oh, maybe even the slave traders. Earn him some pocket change, he says, gleefully, as the men around them laughs along.

Aw, he's pretty-looking for a boy, don't you think? One of the men says. How about we have a bit of fun first?

He reaches for Ringo, a hand making contact with his belly and sliding downwards, and Ringo-

Well.

The incident leaves him bloody and bruised. Three of his fingers are broken, but he salvages whatever food that isn't trampled over or inedible, and runs.

He never does work up the courage to tell Yinyin what happened, and Yinyin doesn't ask, even as she takes in the sight of her son soaked in blood that wasn't his. All she did was to offer him a hug, stroking his back until he learns how to breathe again.

(And if Ringo starts waking up from a memory of the sickening squelch-crack made when he caves in a man's chest, the choking scream cut off by the crunch of a skull being crushed by a sloppy fist, or the pinpricks of an unwanted touch crawling across his skin, that's none of anyone else's business but his.)

Morgans sits by him every night, beak clacking as he complains about everything - the weather, the food, the way his leg aches from the seastone cuffs. Ringo lets him, knowing that he's trying his best to distract him. He's grateful for his company.

That, and the fact that he likes how he still looks at him in his eyes when he talks to him. Even when Morgans found him stumbling out of the bushes covered in sticky, sticky red from head to toe; when he stayed by his side as Ringo desperately tries to scrub the taste of iron out from his teeth.

It's something small on his part, but Ringo owes him for it.

"I was sixteen," Yinyin sighs one murky night, her coughs broken and so wet as she vomits the ugly accumulations of disease and blood from over the past months.

She was sixteen as she drifts from town to town, port to port, finding work in taverns and bars, until she has to pack up and leave again when marines or suspicious men come snooping around, until-

She was sixteen when he promised her the world, hushed whispers of devotion shared only between them. He was witty, and incredibly charming, tales of travels and escapees from sea kings the size of islands entrances her. He'd made her heart flutter and her words stutter, a sense of ease she hadn't felt in years. She had him smitten with her banter, how she towers over him and a tinkling laughter that he thought was beautiful, one that she does when she throws a quip at him. How she cracks the table along with his arm when he challenged her to a match in arm wrestling.

She was sixteen when he left her with a child and a promise to return.

(She finds the news in a small corner of the newspaper. Seven pirate ships, broken masts and hulls. Dragged under by the waves to the sea snake nest below, it says. There was a lone picture, tiny and insignificant, but she recognises one of the flags swaying in the wind, tattered beyond repair.)

Ringo listens, and holds Yinyin's hand. He gently wiped at her face with a washcloth, dabs her tired eyes and cheeks. She's lost awareness at some point, feverish murmurs falling from her lips. And if he listens hard enough, he can sometimes make out something akin to a name.

That was the only time he hears about his father. He never did get the chance to ask again.

He was still seven when Yinyin dies by the edge of the sea.

She's grown thinner and weaker over the course of their journey, and Charlotte blood or not, it is useless in the face of disease and illnesses. It eats at her, slowly and steadily, until she's too frail to sit up or even lift a cup.

"You should find your aunt." Yinyin said. "She may be a pirate, but she can protect you. Family will always comes first in the Charlotte household."

 _Fire, and a cruel, cruel smile._ Ringo pushes back the memory of that faded wanted poster. Wordlessly, he traces circles over his mother's hands with his thumbs.

"Promise me," Yinyin coughs.

Ringo swallows his tongue and his guilt, and nods.

One night, they settle in a camp in the forest and grass, the line of sand just a few feet away and the crashing of waves lulling him to sleep. When he wakes, it's to Morgans' gentle flap of his wings, the sad droop of his head, and the cold, stiff body of Yinyin beside him.

Yinyin has always loved the sea, so it is with a heavy heart that Ringo drags her to the heart of the sandbank, a long strip of path connecting this island to the next. He wraps her up in her favourite cloak, lowers her into the deep waters on one side, and watch her pink, pale hair spreads like a halo in the water around her head.

"Thank you for taking care of me." Ringo says. There's a moment where he has to suck in a shaky breath, feeling his throat stick and the grief aching in his eyes. His vision grows blurry and wet. "I'll be… fine, I think, so don't worry and rest well. You deserved it."

Morgans is silent for once, soft feathers tickling his head from his perch.

"Love you, and I'll miss you, Mama."

Ringo stays until Yinyin's body disappears beneath the dark waves, and it wasn't until the tides start coming in and laps at his legs that he walks away. His eyes don't stop stinging for a long, long time.

Time passes, and Ringo learns to move on.

He takes the Scrapbook with him - because it feels... wrong, somehow, to just throw it away after all that - and dutifully avoids the previous pages where the newspaper clippings are. When even that is not enough, he buries the book at the bottom of his rucksack underneath the small pouch of stones he collects for grip practice. Ringo doesn't want to replace the memory of her smile with Linlin's cruel ones: Charlotte Yinyin deserves every ounce of respect he has for her.

Morgans still squabbles with him, a daily routine. Ringo's perfectly aware of what he is trying to do, perfectly aware that it's his way of showing that he cares. If there's one thing Ringo has come to learn about the bird through their time spent together, is that Morgans has wits as sharp as a whip and an impressive sailor's mouth. The verbal warfare he snipes at him actually riles him up enough that he snaps back. Morgans takes it in stride, however harsh it may be, almost as if he's gleeful that it's working on him.

It's not much of a distraction, by any means, but… it's heart-warming considering that Morgans is just a ten-year-old stuck in a bird's body, and that he's almost as equally affected as he is about Yinyin's passing.

For Ringo, that's enough.

"You know what I saw, back when I was still stuck in that cage?"

"...?"

"Dead bodies. Lots of dead bodies. The ship I was on had- probably slave traders. They'd kill anyone who misbehaves- just pull out a gun and bam! She's dead. I got lucky- they thought I was feral and I ended up in that market where you broke me out."

"..."

"But my point is- all that bullshit I saw? I just… sort of separate them. In my mind, I mean. Hard to explain. Like I just remind myself that I need to focus on the present. Gotta store my feelings and get off this ship until I was somewhere safe-"

"..."

"-ord… What was it- c- com- compartmentalize! That's the word."

"..."

"...Look, I'm not saying it's easy or that you should absolutely do that. Just- it helped me out when I was in a tough spot, emotionally. Kinda fucked up that I'm just ten and you're like seven and I'm telling you this- but, maybe it'll help you too, yeah?"

"...yeah. Hey, Morgans?"

"Hm?"

"Thanks."

"...tch. Don't go telling anyone else about this, or I'll murder you myself."

"..."

"..."

"...you can't kill me, though. You need me for my opposable thumbs-"

"-oh, for fuck's sake-"

Eventually, the pair of them reach the island they were searching for. A port town famous for their locksmiths, and they find one that manages to get the seastone cuffs off Morgans without much questions thrown their way, in exchange for a full pouch of silver coins.

He bids Morgans goodbye. A ship will take him to the biggest news station two islands over, while Ringo will continue his aimless travels. A merchant vessel has agreed to take him with them, in exchange for his help aboard as a cabin boy.

There were no tearful farewells, because while their journey together ends here, both of them know that they will meet each other again someday.

"Hope you'll learn how to fly!"

"Shut up!" Comes the indigent shriek, then in a puff of feathers he watches as the albatross shift into the vague shape of a little boy, shaking his feathers at him as the harbour drifts further and further away from the ship he's on. "You better not die out there!"

"You wish!" He yells back.

Ringo spends his eighth birthday in a tiny cabin in the middle of the sea, listening to the muffled roar of the wind outside and the ship doctor's nagging by his side. Some guy just thought he was an easy target to bully while he was helping the crew to transport supplies, and didn't appreciate the way Ringo had wrinkled his nose. He smashed a bottle of glass into his skull (wow, trigger happy much?), and Ringo retaliated by launching the entire wooden crate at him so hard it smashed into pieces upon impact.

The man had been unconscious for hours when the Captain leaves him behind at port.

"Kiddo, how the _hell_ did you do that?"

Ringo shrugs, and tells him a partial truth. "Used to fight wolves in the mountains." And he picks up three heavy crates stacked on top of each other to the doctor's shock. The captain laughs long and hard, pleased at the unexpected fortune of picking up such a strong worker.

(He could had picked up five at that point of his life, but it's dangerous to attract unwanted attention. Three crates are impressive yet reasonable enough among the people on this side of the world.)

Being on a ship full-time is very different from his days on the road and the occasional stint as a ship straggler. The transition is a little jarring, especially with the extreme weather changes and rough waves that comes with being in Paradise, but he stays polite and works hard, doesn't complain or whine or bawl, and in exchange, no one questions their strange new cabin boy.

He takes the chance to learn how to read and write properly with the abundance of books and papers available on the ship, until the muddle of scribbles becomes letters and the letters become words. At the same time, he absorbs as much news and information of the world as he can.

( _"ROCKS pirates continue wrecking havoc- Will they ever be stopped?")_

The ship doctor beats the importance of having good handwriting into him ("I thought all doctors have bad handwriting." "Yeah, but do you see me having chicken scratches?"), and eventually his messy scrawls evolve into something that's somewhat comprehensible. By the time he sneaks off the vessel, months later, he can read signboards and writes in passable, neat little scripts.

He leaves a pouch of coin he saved up by the doctor's desk as a farewell gift.

The first letter Ringo writes is addressed to Morgans, cheerfully dissing him on his incapability to fly while he has already learned how to read. It was written on the back of a torn wanted-poster with a half-broken feather and an almost dried ink-bottle, then tied carefully to a News Coo's leg, who he feeds half a loaf of stolen sweetbread as a bribe.

His return letter says "Die." and nothing else. Ringo keeps it, tucked away in a secret seam within his rucksack.

_Dear Morgans,_

_Did you know that it's actually not that hard to sneak onto ships? Most of the guards tend to get drunk around the early mornings, and the rest don't really bother with checking their cargo. How did you get captured in that marketplace again?_

_It sucks dealing with sea-sickness, though._

_\- R_

_P.S. Here's a present for you. Snatched it from someone's pockets and thought you'd like another shiny coin for your collection._

_Dear Morgans,_

_This is what, my third ship? That I snuck aboard? Granted, it's all merchant ships so far - I feel bad for their captains._

_Are your adventures as a newspaper boy great so far? The journalists on the newspaper seems to always be in danger if that's what the pictures are telling me. You probably should learn how to fly if you're staying in this line of work._

_\- R_

_P.S. Picked this shell up from the beach. Kinda looks like you, haha. Even the yellow on the edges matches your colors._

_Dear Morgans,_

_I'm on this weird island that rains crabs. No, I'm serious. Every two hours the surrounding sea shoots geysers into the air and bam- crabs in your hair. Red crabs, blue crabs, spider crabs, you name it. On the bright side; the sashimi is great, and it's always funny to hear the smattering of crab-on-wooden-boards then screaming from the deck._

_On another note, do me a favour and feed Pelly more sweetbread next time. She's great. Never met a Message Coo this polite and funny before. She tells me it's hard to feed her kids with her current pay-rate - what the hell are your bosses doing?_

_When you open your own news-station you better pay your workers more!_

_\- R_

_P.S. I have no idea what this is, but if you squint it looks like a seagull._

_Dear Morgans,_

_Paper is really hard to find around these parts. And expensive. I can't believe a twenty-sheet pack costs 3000 beri. This is daylight robbery._

_Must be different for you, huh? I've always wondered what it looks like in a news-station. A room full of a hundred printers and thousands of paper whirling, maybe._

_\- R_

_P.S. Got you some shiny quills I stole from that same paper shop. You're welcome._

_P.S.S. Try not to get papercuts from making heart-eyes at pretty older ladies._

_S_ _HUT UP!_

_\- M_

_Dear Morgans,_

_I already have your first letter in my scrapbook, but I'm framing this one up as soon as I can, fancy polished wood and everything. I'm writing this to just to tell you that._

_\- R_

_P.S. Here's another shell I found. It sounds like a ghost wailing in it if you put it by your ear._

_To my horrible, no-good, piece-of-shit friend,_

_Sometimes I imagine putting my fingers on your scrawny neck and popping your head off, but alas, I do not have hands. Count yourself lucky._

_I am, however, not without appreciation, so it's good to hear that you're still alive out there. Not that anything can kill your roach-like tendencies. If a bear couldn't do it I doubt anything else can._

_Apologies for not responding to your letters sooner (and for the shortness of the last one. I've only had enough time to scribble a response out before work pulls me away). My apprenticeship has been... busy. Frustrating so far. Everyone's incompetent here, and if they make me serve another cup of coffee I'll poison their supply with newspaper ink. I'm resorted to watching my seniors during the day just to learn how things work, and sneak around at night so I can get into their documents and records. It's like I'm a cat-burglar instead of a proper trainee and I_ hate _it._

_As for paper; you don't usually see them for sale out on the Grand Line. They're usually bought up by nobles and rich merchants before the rest of us can get our hands on it, and they're more or less wasted on trivial things- some rich brat came by the other day with his daddy and demolished a pack. Can you believe that? Thirty-five fresh, pristine paper wasted just like that. The damn brat didn't even fill the page up! What the hell?!_

_But anyways, I'll send you some leftover-scraps whenever I write back. Just let me know whenever you need them so you won't have to resort to torn posters and dirty newspaper clippings._

_\- M_

_P.S. Thank you for the gifts. I'd get you some if I didn't know you'd steal most of what you need anyways._

_P.S.S. Pelly has agreed to be our main Messenger and will accept any and all forms of bread as payment. And once I become the boss of this station I'd pay her more, obviously._

He jumps six more ships, until the man he's helping out with unloading his cargo makes him an offer.

"How about ye join us on our ship as an apprentice, lad?"

Ringo blinks, considers the pros and cons, and smiles.

Sometimes Ringo still dreams of the night before Yinyin's death; feels the phantom touch of her warm hands in his tiny ones, remembers what is essentially her last wish before she passed- 

_("-You should find Linlin." Yinyin said-)_

-and promptly represses it in the morning after.

Unhealthy? Yeah, he’s aware. It’s not like he’s proud of it or anything, but it works. For now.

It takes a few months, and while he never does figure out how to stomach the guilt building up behind his throat, he does eventually learn how to distract himself from it through a healthier outlet: writing in his new journal in his spare time.

(It's a cheap looking thing - scraps of paper he salvaged and bound together with pieces of twine, wrapped in spare cloth in an attempt to protect it from water in the same way Yinyin has bound the old Scrapbook. Ringo resolutely tries not to remember about this fact.)

Time passes in a slow crawl when all you see is an endless vast horizon of blue, and there's only so many rocks he can squeeze before he starts running out of them before the next island. So he starts keeping daily logs out of sheer boredom- Writes down what he had for breakfast and lunch and what chores he's stuck on for the day. Thoughts that snuck into his mind during quiet nights. Notes on interesting things that happens; a light-hearted brawl between crew members thanks to a secret poker night yesterday; Stories the peddlers share with him, of an island full of bubbles and laughter that is the gateway to the mermaid kingdom, and he never can decide if they're just fucking with him or not.

And to be perfectly honest, with the number of bizarre things he's already witnessed, he can't exactly dismiss them as mere tales. He already knows a talking, transforming albatross. A Mermaid Kingdom can might as well exist in this impossible world, right?

...right?

Ugh. Maybe they’re really just fucking with him. Dumb old men and their weird stories-

But anyways, lamenting aside, Ringo sort of stumbles into the joys of making lists somewhere along the way, and this, combined with boredom, results in two groups of lists growing longer and longer each day in his journal: 

The first is what he finds interesting; Weather conditions like frog showers and hail shaped like triangles; animals and creatures he's pretty sure are straight up bullshit until he laid his eyes on them. Den-den mushi and their many shape and colours. Sea Kings and snakes and titan fishes he once saw only in dreams.

The second consist of slightly more useful information. Basic rope knots, taught to him by one of the older sailors three days ago. A checklist of compasses, maps, tools and necessities. The shapes and size of clouds and their corresponding forecasts. Universal parts of fishes you can eat if you find yourselves running out of food. Accounts of his expenses and savings, from his meagre portion of pay.

...And of course, the list of presents he had sent to Morgans, and his subsequent reactions to each of them.

It's nice in a way. Something to help him relax, and to practice his writing at the same time when he isn't drafting letters.

(There's a third list he keeps between the 34th and 35th pages of his journal, glued and pulled apart and glued together again. It details what little pieces of his past life that he can remember- accumulated over the years in a collection of fleeting memories and dreams that does not make sense, finally written down during a midnight shift at the crow's nest.

This is what it says:

_One Piece - treasure(?)_

_Pirate king - has a hat? Rubber Hat?_

_Gold Roger - ? (also a king?)_

_Whole Cake Island Arc_

_Big Mom/Charlotte Linlin - has 50(or more?) children. bad news. Stay far, far away from and never, under no circumstances, meet her.)_

"I want to have my own ship someday," Takeshi admitted, swinging his legs over the ship's railings. "Pops wanted me to take over the family business when I'm old enough- would be nice if I can design my own figurehead."

Ringo hummed in acknowledgement, sipping away at his juice. To his side, Suki laughs. "What are you, a pirate? What kind of fishermen ship has that?"

"I mean- kinda unfair that pirates are the only ones to have sick-looking ships, y'know? If they can do that, why can't I?"

Suki slaps a palm on Takeshi's shoulders, nodding solemnly. "Alright, that's valid," he says, then side-eyes Ringo. "What 'bout you? Any dreams like our pirate-boy here?"

"Hey!"

As the cabin boys descend into squabbling, Ringo contemplates the question- which is a very good one. He doesn't have a dream, really. Not even when he was still travelling with his mother, where he's just sticking along for the ride as he tries to figure out what to do. Not even now, a year into his journey on this ship, merely allowing the currents to pull him along, only poking at things that caught his attention and curiosity.

Come to think about it- the one constant in his life so far is that he travels a lot, and that he enjoys wandering the roads without care, tied to nothing but the direction of the winds. He _likes_ seeing new things; find out what else this world has to offer; find the mermaids and the sky kingdom and whatever semi-bullshit the gaggle of old men had told him so he can finally decide if they're true. Maybe he'll have to do odd-jobs here and there to fund his travels in the future, when he decides to leave this ship-

_(Find Linlin. Yinyin said.)_

Ringo clamps down on his tongue at the memory bubbling to the surface of his mind and hisses, juice dripping down his shirt.

No. No, compartmentalize. Think of something else.

" _Dude_ , you got juice all over- the cook isn't going to like that."

"Sorry," Ringo replies, plastering a smile on. Think of something else; travelling, funding, looking for interesting and colourful and fun things. Ooh, what if he gathers them and sell them? That'll solve the funding part.

"Maybe I'll be a merchant," He tells them after a beat. "Y'know, like Mister Ryden or Mister Yowarashi. Not sure what I'll be selling yet, but I wanna see the rest of the world- maybe I'll see enough to tell the same fairytales those port-peddlers always do."

Suki snorts. "What, like the mermaids? Those ain't real, y'know?"

"You think dolphins aren't real until two months ago," Takeshi snipes at him.

The boys tumble into a fight again until the first-mate pulls them apart and gifts them both a solid knock on their heads. And the day, like every other one, eventually passes and is largely forgotten.

_To Ringo,_

_Attached to this letter is a list of peddling trades I can currently find in alphabetical order, from common to uncommon wares. I've excluded slave-trading because we both know that it's garbage._

_I call dibs on being your first business partner._

_\- M_

_Dear Morgans,_

_You can't call dibs on something that doesn't exist yet. I don't even know what kind of wares I'd be getting into! What if I end up not being one?_

_And thank you, I really appreciate it._

_\- R_

_To Ringo,_

_I can, and I just did. And in exchange (if you become one!), I'll let you in on some of the juiciest news and gossip, obviously. It's not a business partnership if there wasn't any equivalent exchange._

_Also, Happy late Birthday. Congratulations on being 9. I knew you wouldn't die so easily, like the cockroach you are._

_\- M_

(Sometime in the future, when someone asks Ringo what his biggest shame is, his answer will be sleeping through his mother's passing.

Here lies a secret: that is a lie.

His biggest shame is that he is, deep down in his heart, secretly glad that Yinyin has passed. Because it means he doesn't have to follow her anymore. It means he doesn't have to find Charlotte Linlin; it means he won't be involved with the plot, won't be involved with his fucked up biological "family", far away from the chaos; it means that he'll be safe.

It means that he is finally _free._

The sheer relief he has and the absolute shame that he _feels like that_ eats at the deepest part of his guts.)

Time passes.

"Don't ye have family, lad?" Asks the cook one day, a rotund, gruff but laid-back man.

The setting sun baths the deck in swaths of gold. Behind them, the crew toils on and sings, song cresting into a chorus alongside a smattering of laughter:

_"And it's windy weather, boys, stormy weather, boys_  
_When the wind blows, we're all together, boys_  
_Blow ye winds westerly, blow ye winds, blow_  
_Jolly sou'wester, boys, steady she goes..."_

For a moment, Ringo remembers the taste of salt in the air and down the trail on his cheeks. The weight of his polka-dotted handkerchief tied into his hair feels heavier, and prickles, as if it's burning the skin on the back of his neck.

A year ago he would had froze at the question. Now, his fingers merely tighten around the ropes he's weaving, before he quickly forces them to loosen again.

_(Find Li-)_

"Nope." Ringo chirps, and hi-fives two other young men at their table.

The cook nods. "Aye, it be like that sometimes."

_I've been on this ship for months. I am not going to find her, and she won't be able to find me because a) the grand line is huge, and b) she has better things to do._

_Besides, there's no way she'd go out of her way to track down one kid when she already has eighty of them._

(He has a budding dream now, and it's going to happen far away from the plot. Far, far away.)

In hindsight, maybe he shouldn't have tempted fate like that.

There was no sign, no warning. One moment there was silence, the lull of the currents and the night breeze, but by the next the cabin he was sleeping in suddenly bursts into flames.

Terrified screaming fills the air. There's a flurry of panicked stampede as everyone and everything moves around him, shadows flashing in between scorching flames. The heat rips at his lungs and throat before his body finally catches up to reality and Ringo throws himself onto the ground, snatching his rucksack hanging from the side of his bed in reflex (that he did on purpose just for emergencies like this, he fucking knew it-), coughing and spluttering in the limited airspace under the thick, suffocating smoke. The wooden floorboards dig into his flesh as he claws his way towards the direction where he vaguely remembers is the exit.

"Pirates!" He hears. "We're under attack-"

There's a loud cracking noise just as he reaches the door, and steps right out into the mouth of hell.

_("Promise me."_

_Sorry, Ringo thinks. Sorry, but I don't want to.)_

Ringo was ten, or eleven maybe, when a woman with his mother's face and a smile full of teeth finds him.

The pirate stands in the centre, bodies littered around her as the sea of flames surrounding them _raged._ And surrounding isn't as accurate - more like the fire seems to be guarding her, circling her like the crown of a conqueror. The woman chucks the headless body in her grasp to the side like a doll, where it crumples pitifully with a snap.

Then she turns- and Ringo takes an unwilling step back as fiery, bottomless eyes drills right into him. There was a brief moment of pause, before the woman _grins._

"Hmph, it's about time I found you," She says. "Though I could have sworn she said she had a son, not a daughter. Not that it matters- mamamahaha!"

 _You should have ran,_ says the little voice in Ringo's head, a chill running down his spine. _You should had ran-_

Ringo forcibly tamps down the surge of despair at that and snuffs out the thought, because this is not the time for that. Right now, he needs to focus on the situation at hand.

Compartmentalize, and adapt-

He doesn't get the chance to speak; the moment he looks up and makes eye contact there's a split second of sudden awareness before the pits of his stomach _sinks_ at the same time as he chokes, throat seizing, closing up at the thick, thick _fear_. All the air in his chest rips itself out and he forgets to breathe. His legs won't move.

( _You are already dead-)_

Charlotte Linlin looks at him, pink mane wild and huge, and _smiles_.

Then there's a sharp, sharp pain piercing through him, enough to jolt him out from his stupor. Enough for him to see the Yonko twisting her fingers around a foggy, fragile shape. A ball of soft, translucent energy, stretched across the deck, and when he looks down: connected to the centre of his chest.

 _My soul_ , Ringo thinks.

"At least now I know you're really family," Linlin says, idly rolling his soul in her palm. "Bah- enough chit-chat. It's almost time for supper, and I am _starving_. ZEUS!"

"Hai, Mama!"

Like a frozen doll, Ringo can only swallow his panic as Linlin plucks him up like a toy - he idly notes, in a calm hysterical way, that his biological aunt is really fucking tall - and strides towards the edge of the hull. With a single powerful leap she jumps, and Ringo watches as they land on a collection of dense, swirling grey clouds underneath them. Then it's just the salty air stinging his eyes and the roar of wind in his ears as they ride into the moonless sky.

The sinking ship burns behind them, and soon fades into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/18/21 - edited and polished this chapter to match my recent updates. 
> 
> Sea Shanty featured here: Fish in the Sea, from Assassin's Creed Black Flag
> 
> This fic has been simmering in my drafts for over a year and I've been meaning to clean out my wips and all, so here it is.
> 
> I've always wanted to play with a charlotte!OC, but instead of a little sister/brother/sibling, I wanted an elder one (and an actual supportive person to the charlotte fam) so I can make them struggle with 85 younger sibs. Can you even imagine having 85 of them? Jesus christ
> 
> Also, I have goals in this fic and one of them is to dote on baby Katakuri. This is the one thing that is propelling me to write this idea and by god I am going to do it


	2. these little, powerless bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ringo tries to figure himself out, copes and stumbles through his first contact with the Charlotte Family.
> 
> CW: mental breakdown stemming from repressed anxiety and guilt; unhealthy coping mechanics (for now), and hints of poor parenting.

**02.**

The first thing Linlin does when they arrive at her ship is to chuck him into the hands of a crewman like a bothersome sack of potatoes.

"Streusen!" She yells, immediately stomping away, voice and heavy footsteps rattling the entire floor. "Where's my dessert?"

Ringo hangs limply like a wet dishrag in the arms he was deposited into, staring unseeingly at her retreating figure. Distantly, he feels himself being shifted, turned around, dangling in two outstretched hands, and then he's looking up into a pair of eyes squinting down at him.

"Not another one," Murmurs the crewman. Then, he leans in, taking a couple of sniffs at Ringo in a mock imitation of a dog. His nose wrinkles immediately. "-hrk, kid, what the fuck? Ya smell disgustin-"

He loses track of what happens next, except for the room he's dumped into at the end. It's huge; buckets and buckets of all sizes lined up together against the walls, the faint swishing of water echoing in the dark. _There's soap!_ His brain yells at him, muted yet detached excitement wagging its tail through the distant, foggy breaches of his thoughts. He catches sight of the cream-coloured bars on the buckets a second later. _How long has it been since you've used soap?_

(Not since a lifetime ago. Everyone cleaned themselves with plain seawater back on the merchant ship. Freshwater is a luxury in this world-)

"Don't ye dare come out before ye scrubbed that stench off!"

The door snaps shut behind him. He waits until the footsteps fade into the distance before undressing himself, putting his clothes and bag aside by the dry walls. As per the instructions, he scrubs himself raw with the soap, pouring scoopfuls of cold, icy water over his head. His teeth clatters, yet he doesn't step out of the shower until the skin of his fingertips starts to wrinkle.

(Breathe.)

He's towelling himself dry when he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror- and the sight makes him pause.

It the first time he's seeing his reflection. The kid looking at him is skinny. An almost feral, starving look, hunched under the huge towel hanging off his head and shoulders. The soap had washed away all the black dye, so now light-pink locks fall around his face, framing his hollow cheeks. His eyes are dark, sunken, almost pitch-black, and with the white-dotted red neckerchief tied around his neck he looks-

He looks-

He looks just like Her.

(Sickly, starving, laying in bed and wet coughs.)

A prick stabs from within his chest just as his legs slowly gives out, lowering him onto the floor.

(In the time where Ringo was flown over the seas sprawled on Linlin's oversized hat, he'd spent a lot of time thinking. Most of that time is divided between stages - the first half just numb, unthinking and unfeeling even as the icy wind bites at his skin. Distantly, he remembers Linlin singing some sort of tune as her weather companions join in, voices almost distorted in the howl of the wind in his ears.

He's spent half the time after that in denial. Just denial, slowly creeping through the shock.

And now, fear and repressed grief catches up.)

Ringo squeezes his eyes shut. His breath hitched once, then all of a sudden the skin of his face is pulled inwards, mouth and nose scrunching up as he curls into himself. It feels like cotton had invaded his mind, soft and muted and suffocating, the pressure pressing in from all sides. His lungs give way to wet staccato breathes. He's shaking with the desperation to making some noise, any noise, but he's biting his lips so hard he tastes iron and then a cut-off sob spills from his lips and-

(He hadn't been so scared since- hell, he didn't remember being so scared in his life, even when he was cornered in that alley all those years ago. And the funny thing is that it's not all fear; the other half was grief and _ohgodwhatamIgoingtodo_ hitting him like a crashing wave, creeping upwards and blooming from the pits of his stomach.

He didn't want to be involved with the plot or people or his crazy tyrant of an aunt, didn't want to say yes to Her no matter how guilty he is, swallowing the shame as he reaches out for an escape. He thinks of Takeshi and Suki. Thinks of the sailors back on the burning ship, thinks of how none of them deserved it-

 _Why me?_ )

Then as quick as it struck, the grief ebbs away.

Slowly, lukewarm. Ringo unclenches from his folded-up position. The ringing in his ears softens. Feet, legs, releases the breath in his chest. Let’s go of his shoulders, then the tension around his eyes, letting a couple more stray tears leak down his cheeks. The hiccups slows to sniffs as he picks himself up from the floor, settling over his half-crossed legs, both hands loosely braced on the floor.

His head throbs.

Ringo inhales. Once, twice, breathe in, breathe out. Floorboards, rough and wooden under his legs and fingers. The creak of the lamp above him. The lull of the currents outside. The gentle sway of the room.

The beginnings of nausea in his stomach, and the sharp bite of his fingernails from how hard he's clenching into his palms.

Okay, okay. Calm down. Compartmentalize, and adapt. Anger and sorrow and guilt could wait.

First, he has to assess the situation.

One, he's been kidnapped by Linlin. Who somehow tracked him down after all these months. She's strong and absurdly powerful, a true monster in her own right, and there's no way he can fight his way out of this. He's _ten,_ for fuck's sake.

Two, he's on her ship. In the New World. That's going to be a problem by itself. Even if he somehow, through a miracle, successfully found a way out, he has neither the tools nor power to navigate the New World and its share of fatally freakish weather.

And say he somehow manages to get a ship… Well, he may be a super-powered ten-year old who can shatter rocks into dust, but a ship needs a full crew to set sail.

 _…If I can even get through an opening,_ Ringo scowls, picking himself up and stumbling to the basin. On the downside, he's not even sure if such a chance will come soon either. You don't get to become a Yonko - or one in the future - without some sort of strategic mind or competency to ensure your ship's security.

He didn't have the slightest chance of escaping, and it stings to accept that.

Several pieces of towels are folded neatly by the basin, and he helps himself to it, wetting them solemnly before slapping the whole square onto his face, wiping the tearstains and tension away.

Now that some of the irrational frantic anxiety had ebbed, Ringo could think a little more clearly: For now, the only real option left to him was to keep his mouth shut and play nice. Try to gather more information before he can put together a plan. In the meantime, staying obedient and keeping on her good side would open up a window of opportunity, no matter how long he has to wait-

The face staring back at him in the mirror this time is solemn. Gaunt, dark circles under his eyes. Hungry, tired, but steel-like.

He makes a decision.

First things first: map out the ship.

There was no way to measure the time passed, but no one had come by to check in on him since he was thrown into the bath. The hallways upon opening the door were empty and utterly devoid of any guards. There's a weight in the air that curves his spine and makes it rather hard to breathe. Yet, it's all but inviting him to take the chance to scout out the enemy territory, and figure out what exactly he had stumbled into.

...That was the plan, incidentally, until a piercing but unmistakably baby wail scares the absolute shit out of him.

Ringo has spent all but ten minutes stumbling around the maze of corridors, engrossed with packing the whole… semi-major mental breakdown into a neat little box in his head to store it away, before jumping out of his skin thanks to the wail. Then another twenty minutes following said wail out of sheer curiosity and disbelief. It echoes and bounces off the walls, noise overlaying and overlapping in his ears in intervals.

A sense of dread and chill fills him the closer he gets to the source.

(Charlotte Linlin, tyrant and queen of a pirate kingdom. With eighty-five powerful children at her beck and call- her judges, juries and executioners. Pirates and murderers and heartless criminals-)

The room he finds at the end of his trail is a huge, sprawling mess. It's bathed in eye-searing pink, only tolerable thanks to the dark. Toys with too huge eyes and oversized, mismatched piles of stained cushions scattered across the padded-floor. In the middle of the room hangs a canopy of cream-white curtains, soft and rustling in the night breeze, the silhouette of a cradle within framed by the moonlight from the open windows.

The wailing is coming from the inside.

Here, Ringo considered his options:

A, choose to walk away right now. Warning bells are literally ringing in his mind and if that isn't a sign he'll eat his shoes. Ignoring the high probability that those are Linlin's spawn, it's none of his business getting involved with a random baby. Plus, he doesn't even know what to do with one in the first place!

Or B: go up and see what is the baby fussing about - because a part of his brain is going _why is the baby unattended a baby should not be left alone in a dark room! And why is this thing shrieking like it's being stabbed or something, so where the fuck is its caretaker-_

As if on cue, the wailing dies down abruptly.

The silence in the room, he notices, is stifling.

"Goddammit," Ringo cusses under his breath as Option B wins out of curiosity and _maybe_ some part of him is slightly concerned about the sudden silence. Did it choke on its saliva or something?

He creeps up to the canopy, brushes aside the curtains and slips inside. Then, he tiptoes, peering into the cradle.

Two pairs of eyes blink back at him.

 _Oh._ Ringo squints and takes a better look at the two babes tucked into the basket. One sports wide yellow eyes while the other has watery, brownish-orange ones. Thin, wispy hair sits atop their heads, too light and too little to make out their colours. _Tiny_ , is his first thought, followed by _wrinkly_. _Ugly._

Then he watches as the both of them scrunch up their faces almost simultaneously, and the warning bells within his mind rises in pitch, pushing him to brace himself as both babies take an enormous breath, and _scream._

Ringo startles, bangs the end of his elbows into the corner of the cradle as he stumbles backwards. Tiny hands work their way free from the blanket to wave in the air, the wails reaching a whole new level of pitch.

_Oh god my ears-_

He doesn't think. Instead, he reaches in, picking up the entire basket and rocks for all his worth, doing his best impression of a rocking horse, wide-eyed and a rising panic in his chest. Are they hungry? Scared? Was it his face? Did he not scrub it enough? And again, why are they even left alone in the room? Babies should be supervised!

...oh no, what if the crying attracts Linlin's attention? If he doesn't stop them soon will she'll come barrelling in with vengeance and skin him on the spot for making her kids cry?

"Oh my god," Ringo says. "Oh my god. Oh. My. God. Please don't cry, _please don't cry_!"

He switches into a weird tone of improvised singing - impromptu lyrics be damned - and starts bouncing from his knees, putting his entire body into rocking the basket and the crying babies contained inside. If they won't stop, Ringo's certain he's going to start crying _himself._

(He has no fucking idea how to deal with a baby - and certainly not _two_ of them. His traitorous blank memories aren’t giving him any hints at all and _holy_ _fuck_ -)

And then he trips backwards over his feet, flinging the basket upwards as he scrambles to right his balance. For a moment his lungs jump to his throat because this is it, this is how he dies- before the basket lands solidly back onto his belly, knocking the wind out of him as he serves as the landing mattress for eight whole kilograms of babies.

A moment of stunned silence. Then, twin laughter rings out from the basket. The kids giggle, hands and legs waving and kicking in delight in the air.

 _Yeah, yeah,_ Ringo grumbles internally. _Laugh at my circus act, will you?_

Then the door to the room behind him opens.

Ringo, half-sprawled on the floor, freezes in horror as he cranes his neck, struggling to look behind him.

A strange man looks at him from the doorway. In the dim lighting of the room, Ringo barely makes out his attire - a deep indigo chef's uniform, together with a yellow scarf around his collar; a wide puffy hat with long feathers sticking out from its sides. A huge golden stopwatch hangs from his belt, thrice as big as the man's fists. On its opposite hangs a sword with a golden hilt.

There's an awkward pause, then the man says, in a curling accent: "Oh, good. You stopped Brûlée and Broyé's crying."

 _Brulee?_ Ringo thinks blankly, excuses dying down on the tip of his tongue. _Broye?_

(Why do those names sound so familiar-)

The chef kicks the door shut behind him with his heels and is quick to reach Ringo's side. He's short, Ringo notes, watching him this up-close. Chef plucks the basket out from his lap, settling it back into the crib. With a hand rocking the crib, he produces two milk bottles from somewhere and starts shaking them one-handedly, effortlessly clutching onto both between his five fingers.

The babbling from the kids rises in volume, straining from delight into the beginnings of a tantrum.

"Don't just lie there," Chef scoffs, glancing back at him. "Get over here and help me out."

His name is Streusen. Ringo recognises that as the name Linlin had been yelling for since their arrival.

And he _loves_ listening to his voice, considering how talkative he is.

In the span of an hour Ringo learns plenty about him: Streusen is the First Mate to Linlin, and the head chef of this ship. Both of which makes him really busy- and that Linlin eats at least twenty meals a day, which he files away into his brain as he listens in silent horror at the stories. He likes alcohol, but god-forbid smoking (an insult to a chef's taste-buds!) and holing up in his beautiful, personalized kitchens coming up with new recipes.

The chef loves to sing too, but his opera-like song sends the twins bursting into tears instead.

"They seem to like you," Streusen grins. "Never seen them quiet down this fast before."

"Um," Ringo said like an idiot. "Thank you, mister…?"

He gently rocks the crib. The made-up rhythm seems to be appleasing the twins, tiny mouths yawning and eyes drooping.

"Ach- none of that now, kid. Just Streusen will do."

"Streusen-san." He amends.

Streusen side-eyes him with an amused look. "Ooooh, manners. A rarity on the seas. Thought you'd be like Linlin- with your face and hair like that you look just like her when she was your age." He snorts, then starts eying him critically, gaze sweeping down and back up at Ringo sharply. Without heat. "If she only ate one meal a week, that is. You're all skin and bones- what have they been feeding you?"

Not much, to be honest. Meal times with the merchants back then was decent- rations and non-perishables, with the occasional rice and fish. Soup on a good day.

"...I try to get by with bread."

(The truth is that it's… not enough for _him._ Never was. He has Charlotte blood in him - his appetite and body metabolism are off the charts. He'd lost count of the nights he'd woken up hungry and drank mouthful after mouthful of water in a futile attempt to ease the hunger pangs. A necessary sacrifice to stay on the ship and his attempt at avoiding looking for his aunt.)

Streusen frowns at him, brows furrowed like Ringo had personally insulted his ancestors.

"Tch- that won't do!" Then a hand clamps down on his shoulder, and Ringo's already being steered towards the door. "Get going. We have a buffet prepared and I _intend_ to put at least five meals in you- You can work for it back afterwards. There's this new recipe the kitchens cooked up-"

They put him in a huge dining room with a long, white table, and gave him enough food to fill him to bursting, as promised.

It's hard, eating dishes that are crafted by professionals after sustaining on leftovers for so long. The spices scald into his tongue, coaxing unshed tears at the corners of his eyes with the intensity. Everything burns his throat going down. His stomach claws at itself from within, even if Streusen has him start on mere spoonfuls.

"Your body needs time to get used to it," Streusen explains, ladling more soup into his bowl before he can stop him. Flanking him are two more chefs, each holding onto a steaming porcelain bowl in their hands. "Especially with the level of nutrients we pack into the food on this ship. We'll get you started on liquids before moving on to solids-"

He talks like this the entire time until Ringo licks his half-bowl clean, then the entire way as he leads him to his temporary quarters- a room filled with empty cots and beds, filling his head with a good bit of nutrition facts before sternly reminding him to find him on the deck at dawn.

(Idly, Ringo notes that the cots are all children-sized.)

Then in the morning, Streusen puts him to work around the ship.

It's the start of a new routine for the next couple of weeks.

Ringo learns that you don't get to eat if you don't contribute your part in the crew - which he understands, because it's the same back on his old ship. But the difference is that while the merchants are softer on the kids, here it matters not if you're an adult or a ten-year old child: Charlotte Linlin does not tolerate freeloaders. Streusen had emphasized on that, tone almost apologetically.

_(Eighty-five children, whispers his memories, all afraid and fearing for their lives-)_

Still, Streusen is nice. Linlin has no crewmen apart from him and his team of twenty chefs, so all of them are fluent in many bits and pieces - from the bottom to the top of the ship. Streusen himself is experienced at navigation and weather foresight, familiar in the way he shows Ringo around, listing out his duties.

And him? He takes to the chores like a duck to water.

Ringo runs laps around the deck with a mop two times a day, early morning and evening, the first thing he does after waking up and the last thing he does before going to bed. In between, he helps out with laundry- carries basketfuls of heavy sheets and linen, scrubs dirty clothes. Then netfuls of giant fishes, pulling them into the kitchens. He diligently scrubs and wipes down the floors and tables, falling back into the familiar routine he had once as a humble cabin boy aboard a shipful of merchants.

(He doesn't think about the sight of a burning ship in the night.)

And quietly, to himself, Ringo carefully soaks up information.

Ship chores means getting to scramble around the entire ship with none of the suspicion. Three weeks in, and he maps out the entire ship. Taking detours during bathroom breaks late at night speeds up his efforts, and an excuse is always at the tip of his tongue when he chooses to risk it. When he's sure that he'd memorised it all (no maps or sketches, he can't risk it), he moves onto the chefs' routines - the route of their night patrol, the shift switches. Where they hid the alcohol and password to the lock.

Slowly, the mental pages start filling up.

(He keeps a mop or broom on him at all times as alibi. He had tempted fate only once, and refuse to be careless this time around.

 _Never again._ )

The only setback is the language. It's not because that everyone on board spoke with different ones, tossing them back and forth in a volley of switcheroos, accents and dialects twanging in their tones. He had expected it already, really. It wasn't that different from back then on the old ship, and it'll be stupid to expect it otherwise here.

No, his problem is that the common-tongue they spoke is _different._ It sounds a lot like Linian, the one Ringo grew up with and spent months getting his hands whacked by a ruler in an attempt to right his chicken-scratches. But it's not. Turns out, New World Linian has its minor differences from its Paradise counterpart. He has to strain his ears to catch bits and pieces of conversations, and then strain his memory at night trying to piece together information.

So much for banking on that. It's embarrassing to be reduced to playing the role of a confused, lost child, asking the adults to repeat themselves.

That, or other option is listening to Streusen's singing and having them loop in his head for hours while he picks the words apart.

But hey, at least the man is happy to have an audience.

The babies, unfortunately, do not phase out of the equation.

"No, no. Not Brulee and Broye." Streusen stressed. "It's _Brûlée_ and _Broyé_."

Ringo stares flatly back at the man, who is very, very lucky that both of his arms are currently preoccupied with a basketful of twins, and that he has a sense to hold himself back from chucking the _kids_ anyways at him.

Some of the other chefs (namely, the ladies) coo about how adorable he is, carting the twins around, which he listens with a mix of confusion and irritation. It's not like he has a choice to say no - if he were to be honest, he'd rather spend the two hours peeling barnacles off the side of the ship, over playing nanny to two wrinkly, noisy babies.

And it's not that he dislikes children, either. It's just… he doesn't know what to do with them. He doesn't know how to play or talk or interact with them, doesn't know if he should smile or frown at their babbling. Ringo can't remember if he was ever a baby person in his past life, but considering how awkward he is now the answer to that question should be obvious.

In the end, he opts to sit quietly during the babysitting sessions, schooling his expression into a careful neutral, and keeps his eyes on the babies while he holds the basket still as the chef-on-duty feeds them milk.

(He absolutely refuses to learn how to baby talk no matter how much the ladies on board keep suggesting him to. It's not only embarrassing, but condescending in a way that sours his tongue.)

The basket under his fingers shifts. A muffled babble, then Ringo looks down and locks eyes with the yellow-eyed twin - Brulee, his mind supplies. She fidgets, small chubby hand reaching out at him, waving almost impatiently. Broye is watching her sister, her confusion as clear as Ringo's own.

"Well, what are ye waitin' for?" Streusen says. "Go on- give her your hand!"

Perplexed, Ringo stretches out his right hand to the girl. Brulee slaps her own onto his with a wet slap, immediately tightening her grip onto his fingers, then she lowered her head-

-And spits the pacifier out onto his palm with a small 'pop'.

Ringo slowly looked down at the… wet… thing, dumbstruck, then looked back up again, locking eyes with Streusen.

"...Um," He said.

"She likes you!" Streusen guffaws. "Lucky you! Charlottes do not share things often, y'know? You should thank her."

That did not explain anything. Ringo's utterly torn between protesting and outright saying _what the fuck_ in that moment. But before he can make a choice he hears another wet 'pop', a split second before a _second_ warm, slimy thing lands on his frozen, outstretched palm.

He looks back, stares at the new purple pacifier resting beside its pink counterpart on his palm, then looks at Broye, who giggles, flashing her gummy, toothless grin at him.

Brulee starts shrieking in laughter.

"...Thank you," He says, finally, because he wasn't raised as a hooligan with no manners. Streusen doesn't stop laughing at him for the week straight.

Brulee, as he comes to learn, is very talkative.

She's also very touchy, and more often than not is perfectly content with grabbing and squeezing Ringo's hands, entertaining herself as she babbles nonsensical baby noises away. His fingers are quickly promoted to her personal collection of organic pacifiers, and he has to wash his hands often to counter the change. It gradually culminates into a minigame of 'How fast can I snatch my hand away before she bites, and put them back before she cries'.

Ringo's already learning how to do it with his eyes closed. Instincts and gut feelings can take over his motor controls while he sneaks in naps.

"Excited lil' thing, aren't you.” He murmured, bouncing the basket in his lap the way the twins seemed to prefer. In turn, he received a string of bubbling raspberries and a soft "Riii?", courtesy of Brulee.

Broye, on the other hand, isn't much better. But instead of the near constant babble like her sister does, Broye prefers conserving her energy through naps and quiet staring. When she does decide to talk, it is to focus it into one, singular piercing shriek that continues on and on like nails on a chalkboard until she gets what she wants. Usually, it's diaper-changing or her afternoon milk. Occasionally, it's for Ringo, which she stops only when he sits down beside their basket.

...And if he gets to watch one of the cooks or Streusen himself come tripping over their feet balancing the baby bottle in their hands like a game of hot potato, he keeps it to himself. The sheer entertainment makes up for him going along with babysitting.

There is one downside to it, though.

"Are you sure you don't want to learn?" One of the cooks pouted at him. "It'll be great if you could help us bottle-feed or clean them, Ringo-chan."

Half of him is annoyed at the cutesy-kiddy tone she is using on him. The other half is exasperated, because this is the fifth time he has to refuse someone asking him the same question. "Sorry, Haru-san."

"Are you sure?"

The only reason he's not walking away is that he's elbows-deep in dish soap and dirty plates, half-balanced on an old stool. "I'm very sure."

"Care to share with Miss Haru?" She smiles, a slight amusement twitching at her lips. "Maybe we can both find a solution to this, don't you think? Babies are nothing to be afraid of, y'know. When I first started I was scared too-"

Fine. Ringo puts down the plates and looks at her in her eyes. "I can't, Haru-san. Do you want to know why?"

"Sure! You can tell Miss Haru anything!"

 _God_ , He thinks. _Please stop speaking in third-person. I'm getting second-hand embarrassment._

"Because," He says instead, holding a cup out towards her. "Of this."

He squeezes, carefully, and the cup cracks under his fingers into pieces, and lets them fall to the floor in a chorus of clatter.

"I'll be sad if I accidentally hurt them." Ringo tells her, willing every drop of sincerity and childish disappointment he possesses into his words.

The gossip on the ship spreads fast, because no one else brings up the question to him again. Save for a single cook, who chuckles at him through his cigarette one night, and says: "Heh, least you're not like the other brats. One of 'em used to break things every other day- hell, what did he do last year again?"

"Cracked a good part of the deck," Answers his companion by his side, taking a swig of his bottle. "Took us nearly weeks to repair the damages."

Ringo doesn't ask.

Half of it is a lie, of course. He's been practicing since he was four, and he's pretty confident that his control over his superhuman strength is more than good enough to handle touching fragile, month-old babies.

The real reason, deep down, is that Ringo has to stop himself from getting attached. Nip it in the bud before it even blossoms into something. He's not risking falling head-over-heels for Linlin's spawn like what the ladies in the kitchens talk about, the heart-melting revelation nor a switch that flicks on in your head once you have a baby in your arms. Nope. No way. Even if he's sure that he has a total of Fuck No parental instincts in him.

He's sticking to his script and bolting as soon as he sees a chance.

...Still, he doesn't complain too much, and lets Brulee and Broye chew on his hands.

(There's a faint confusion at the back of his mind whenever he looks at them both. He doesn't receive memories or flashbacks, but for some reason he's convinced that Brulee will grow up with the same babbling mouth and red nose, while nothing significant comes up regarding Broye. Like a missing puzzle piece.)

Other than the… nicer events, the weeks Ringo spends on the ship is not all smooth-sailing. In fact, he's been hanging on the edge of anticipation and dread, waiting for the other shoe to _drop._

He's been lucky, so far. Linlin, to his surprise and relief, isn't on the ship most of the time. Instead, she leaves on her portable thundercloud and returns every few days or so. Pirate business, Streusen tells him, and doesn't elaborate more.

(Ringo's not stupid. He knows that 'Pirate Business' translates to killing and raiding and bloodshed, but he doesn't press for more either.)

He knows, because while he has neither seen hide nor hair of the woman since she dumped him here, her presence is so strong that Ringo can feel it from the other end of the ship whenever she comes and goes. The weight of it is _monstrous,_ pressing down into his very bones, a constant reminder at the edge of his consciousness. There's an unknown word to describe it sitting at the tip of his tongue.

None of the crew seem to be affected, to his disbelief, and one of the older chefs snorts when he brings it up one day.

"Ya just need to get used to it, kid." She says. "Ya think this is scary? Wait 'till ya see the other crews. Everyone's a monster in the New World." Then a pause, "Though, I doubt anybody would dare to cross Linlin-sama. Her strength is unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime."

He remembers that exact conversation when it happens, two and a half-months into his kidnapping.

"We'll be reaching the port in two days," Streusen tells him that night, just as Ringo is finishing up mopping the decks. "Where we left the rest of the brats. Linlin wants to have a word with you about it. Go see her when she comes back tomorrow, will you?"

"Alright," He replies. Inwardly, the sense of dread pummelling down his guts at those words is _shattering._

(Oh no, no, _no.)_

Dinner with Linlin is _suffocating._

Literally, because even seated across her with nine feet between them both feels stifling. Like the weight of ten tonnes of sea water crushing you down from all sides, turning your lungs from the inside out. Ringo doesn't fidget- doesn't move or wriggle, not because he doesn't dare but because he _can't._

A faint buzzing is constantly ringing in his ears, a sense of anticipation looming on the horizon.

He doesn't touch his plate at all.

Meanwhile, Linlin _eats._ Starvingly, voraciously. She seizes handfuls of cakes and puddings, tossing them into her mouth, cream dripping down her fingers yet somehow missing her clothes. Her wet smacks and chewing and swallowing fill the room with their intensity.

She's _huge,_ Ringo notes. The repressed memory of her plucking him up like a toy resurfaces from his mind, now that he's gotten a good look at her. Her height alone has him straining his neck up, nevermind the presence she's radiating, with wide shoulders and arms lined with hard muscles. Her long, wild mane of pink hair crowns her like licking flames. When her piercing gaze settles on Ringo, all the hairs on the back of his neck stands stiff as sweat starts beading on his forehead, leaving salty trails prickling the corners of his eyes.

Here is a fact: Charlotte Linlin is devastating beautiful _,_ and _terrifyingly_ powerful at twenty-six than most will become in a lifetime. Her fists carry the force capable of demolishing mountains, and she will carve herself a name as one of the Yonko of the Seas in the distant future.

And yet, that is not what holds his attention at the moment. Rather, he's busy tracing the shape of her muscles, the healthy shine to her hair, the curves of her cheekbones, and thinks- _that's not fair._

_Is that how Charlotte Yinyin would had look like too?_

" _Mama_ mama!" Linlin laughs, sharp lips curving up at the corners. "Shy little thing, aren't you? Go on, help yourself- Streusen's cooking never disappoints."

"Yeah!" Agrees the thundercloud to her left, droopy face lit up with a beaming smile.

"Eat up, eat up!" Sings the ball of fire floating to her right, a literal miniature sun with chubby cheeks.

A lump in his throat chokes him. He swallows, and nods.

It marks the start of the verbal game.

Linlin, like Streusen, likes to talk at him. Likes to sing too, often than not turning her words and sentences into impromptu songs alongside the merry tunes her two companions hum.

Ringo doesn't get more than a word into this one-sided conversation, instead finding himself often nodding his head in false agreement or making a noise from the back of his throat to signal that he's listening. He holds onto his guard as tight as he can, hackles raised just _enough_ to not offend. This is fine - it's not like he can muster up the strength to unstick his throat anyways.

And he makes sure to listen, too. At one point of the conversation, Linlin had paused in her musing, and turned to look at him with narrowed eyes. The smile is still on her lips, but the alarm bells start screaming in his head.

"You've been quiet there, Ringo-chan," She says, sickly sweet, amusement and something else not quite _right_ rolled into a chilly tone. "Don't be shy, now. How about you tell me what you think about what I've said?"

Ringo swallows. "...the Carragan pirates were... stupid to sail by Lily's Light, which you h-had already established as your territory. Even if they technically didn't breach the island waters, coming that close implies a challenge to your position, Linlin obaa-sama."

"Mamamama!" The tone of her snaps back to cheery immediately. "They had it coming! Sinking all five of their ships is a small punishment for their audacity-"

Prometheus and Zeus, the sun and the cloud, on the other hand, are much more engaging in the conversation than Linlin. Despite the terrifying atmosphere, he's happy to answer their questions. At least that's an excuse to not look at Linlin.

"Hey, hey!" Chirps Prometheus. "Is it true?"

"...what is?"

"That your mama is Mama's twin," Zeus drifts closer, slightly bouncing in the air. "Is that true? What's she like?"

Ringo closes his eyes, and answers truthfully. "Kind, soft-spoken, and loves the sea."

"Did she really look like our Mama?"

"She does. But thinner. Shorter too. Her hair's a different pink from Linlin obaa-sama. A bit lighter, I think."

"That's so weird!" Prometheus spins languidly. "I can't even imagine a Mama that's thinner _and_ shorter!"

Zeus drifts even closer now, static charge raising the hairs on Ringo's arm at this distance. "She sounds nice," he sings. "Do you think we can meet her someday?"

(His throat tightens momentarily. He forces the memory down.)

"...I'm sorry, Zeus-san." Ringo tells him. "My mama's dead, so you can't meet her anymore."

"Oh." Both of their expressions quiets down immediately. In the background, Linlin's munches is a steady beat. "I'm sorry, Ringo-chan." Zeus droops. Then, almost tentatively, he nudges his nose against his arm, a light bump meant for comfort. "Do you miss her?"

(Do you?)

"...Sometimes." Ringo inhales. "But it's been years, so it doesn't hurt as much now."

Zeus nods. "I understand. We lost someone like that too."

"It only hurts when we think about Mother, now." Prometheus sighs, drifting lazily. "Still, it would be nice if we had met yours back then, I'd love to try and talk to two Mamas."

"...Y'know, she would have loved to meet you two too." Ringo says idly, carefully filing away 'Mother' (Who is he talking about?) into the tiny box tucked in his mind. Then a pause, before he tacks on, thinking of the worn scrapbook. "She always did miss her sister."

"Really?"

Ringo manages a small smile. "Yeah-"

-and suddenly, like a sudden crack, his throat clenches up just as the pressure in the room increases ten-fold, squeezing into him as his instincts _wail._ Black spots crawl across his vision as bile threatens to claw itself out from his belly. He's half-choking on his spit- That's his single warning of Linlin's mood taking a sharp nosedive, a thunderous snarl crawls across her face just as she shatters the cup in her hand-

"Missed me?" She snarls, table crunching under her grip. " _Missed me?_ What a _fat-fucking joke._ How dare she- after leaving me all alone, just like how Mother did?"

(A prick of memory pokes at him. A house of sheep. A faraway land. A slender, thin hand pinching a cigarette.

A birthday song and distant screaming.)

Then as sudden as it came, it's gone. The anger bled from Linlin's face, and moments later she's humming a merry tune and chewing on another piece of cake.

"Mamamama," She laughs. "Well, it doesn't matter, since she's already dead. I guess you'll be under my charge now."

Ringo's barely breathing, gasping for fresh air the moment the pressure releases him. He almost misses her words through the ringing in his ears.

"Now, this was a nice dinner." She coos. "Be a darling and go get ready for tomorrow - you'll be meeting the rest of your siblings and I want you to be on your best behaviour." And then she's back on her desserts, humming a lilting tune as Zeus and Prometheus drifts back to her side.

It's a clear dismissal if he ever heard one. He shakily pulls himself from his seat, and flees from the room.

(He swallows the red-hot anger clawing at the back of his throat, and screams the cumulation of his repressed emotions of that evening into a cushion until his throat feels raw and scratched. Then, he gathers everything and packs them away into a steel box at the deepest part of his memories once again, locking it up as tight as he can.

Charlotte Linlin does not deserve the memory of her twin. He will not make the same mistake again.

A final, random thought - in between his fear, his anxiety, the sheer frustration and _guilt -_ that flutters through his mind before he collapses into unconsciousness is-

 _Just how many kids does Linlin have, right now?_ )

They arrive at port before dawn, where a small crowd was waiting for them.

It's still dark out here. The air is crisp, heavy with the salty tang of the sea. He stands quietly to the side of Linlin's knees, shifting from leg to leg, careful to not disturb Brulee and Broye- who're snoozing away within the basket in his arms.

 _God,_ Ringo thinks, _I_ _wish that were me right now._

Linlin's saying something to a gently-smiling maid, the only other adult of the group waiting for them, boisterous laughter ringing in his ears but he tunes whatever she's saying out, glancing over at the gaggle of kids instead.

He counts not one, not two, not _three_ , but nearly eighteen, legitimate kids. Little boys and girls of all shapes and sizes, each fidgeting and tussling with each other, some with an armful of an even younger, still-a-baby sibling. If he didn't believe his memory of his past life before - because new fantasy or not, eighty-something kids is still a stretch - he definitely believes his eyes now.

Ringo glazes over them, squinting through the dark. The only light source is from the lantern in the maid's hand, but he makes do: he catches sight of several larger than normal boys scuffling amongst them, then a girl or two with an abnormally long, slender neck- thrice as long as his, in fact. As if they're snakes.

Hmm. Interesting.

He's just about to zone out on the spot when the hair on the back of his neck rises. A small prick of _feeling_ stings at the side of his cheek, and he shifts slightly, before he's staring right back at a boy.

The first thing he sees are his red eyes.

The second, immediately afterwards, are the scars.

Even in the faint light they stand out. Jagged tears split from the corners of his lips; its sloppy, rough stitches barely held together by thick threads. He can't help but stare- at this distance Ringo can't tell how far back they pull towards his ears. It’s as if something had reached into the boy's mouth and pried his jaws open as wide as they could, forcing them far beyond what human anatomy could take.

It's not that he hadn't seen gore before. There's that incident from when he was younger, and injuries he witnessed from the years when he was aboard ships, but this-

This is...

What the fuck.

(What kind of sick bastard would do this to a kid?)

The boy blinks, and Ringo snaps out from his staring a little too late- the kid's expression shutters like curtains, jaws locking and stitches emphasizing the gesture, closing himself off and breaking his sight away. Then he steps back, and immediately he's crowded around by two more boys - one short-haired, the other messy bed-hair - who's both giving Ringo the stink-eye.

Ah.

It feels like a futile-attempt at best, but Ringo mouths "Sorry" the moment he catches the eye of the Red-Eyed Boy again. Just for that split second, before he steps back and moves to the other side of Linlin's legs to put some distance between them.

Least he could do is to give Red some space, after his accidental-but-still-rude staring.

Brulee and Broye squirms in their baby basket, and Ringo has to adjust to the shifting weight in his hands, standing awkwardly beside Linlin's knees. She's so tall that he's sure she can punt him like a coconut-

"-and these are your new siblings!" He hears, just as a huge, heavy hand lands on the top of his head, knocking the wind out of him. Linlin ruffles his hair carelessly, throwing her head back in laughter. "Try not to kill each other now, mamamamama!"

He feels another fourteen pairs of eyes swivel to stare at him at once. Ringo thins his lips as he stares back, focusing on the smiling maid instead of the children, eyes flat and expression schooling into something he hopes is neutral.

(Just a bit more.)

Linlin leaves to a chorus of goodbyes from her kids. Interestingly, the older ones are much more polite and mild than he anticipated them to be, each giving their mama a brief hug. The younger kids are disappointed, evident in their whines and tantrum, but they too are eventually pulled back by their older siblings. Ringo watches alongside them as Linlin steps onto Zeus and disappears to the ship sitting just on the horizon, and the maid starts ushering them off.

(He doesn't release his breathe until ~~Linlin~~ the ship is gone.)

The journey back to his new, temporary home is awkward.

None of the kids approach him. Whispered conversation reaches his ears, and he catches faint snippets like _don't wanna_ and _kinda weird_ and _rude_ behind him.Ringo resolutely keeps his eyes forward and bounces the Twin's baskets to the rhythm of his walk, matching the pace of the maid's stride.

"You sure you don't want to give them over?" He hears her ask. Her voice is oddly slow and sweet. His hackles rise for some reason. "It must have been a long journey. Aren't you tired?"

"I'm fine, thank you." He replies, hugging the basket closer. Having the twins- something warm to shield against his chest feels better, somehow.

The walk takes them through the empty harbor, then a detour through the alleyways, but they eventually reach a house near the edge of the town. It's plain, made from wood and a painted green roof, but it's fairly spaced inside and has stairs leading to a second floor.

"Wait for me by the kitchens, hmm?" The Maid says. "I'll be right with you in a bit."

He does as he was told, and listens to the chorus of children whining and talking and yelling and the maid herding them upstairs and to get ready for bed. Brulee and Broye sleeps on in his arms.

Ringo breathes.

(Almost there.)

All it takes is a bit of compliance and some patience, before the maid leaves him alone.

"We don't have enough beds or room currently for you upstairs," She said apologetically, voice sweet and soft, "We'll just have to make do with this room for now, hm?"

Said room was a small spare next to the laundry room. The air smell faintly of soap and dust, and the floor is mildly cold. A hammock pockmarked with patches hangs freely by the wall. Somehow, it treads the fine line between cosy and uncomfortable at the same time.

Ringo's certain that this is a pretty shitty condition to get a kid to sleep in, but he doesn't care.

All he can think is _almost, just almost there. I'm nearly free-_ that he's dizzy from the building anticipation. But he pushes it down, down and _down,_ snapping back to reality.

"That's okay," Ringo murmurs instead, carefully keeping his eyes on the basket in his arms. Brulee's clutching onto his hand, sucking softly at the tip of his pointer finger as she dozes. Next to her, Broye is almost soundless, save for the gentle rise and sinking of her chest.

This is the part where the sullen character will feel the pang of sadness, where they'll have to struggle against their inner turmoil after weeks of looking after a kid. This is the part where they'll change their mind, and end up staying for their newfound bond. It always goes like this in the books, in stories, in tales-

Not him, though.

(He's been waiting for weeks. He needs to leave, _wants_ to leave, soon-

_Now.)_

The pang of sadness that blooms within his chest when he slowly pulls his finger from Brulee is small, lukewarm after weeks of acceptance. Brulee and Broye sleeps on, barely noticing the small movement, and Ringo allows himself a small smile at the sight before handling the basket over to the maid, who coos and rocks the twins slightly.

He ignores the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

(Still, at least they'll be safe with their real siblings.)

"We'll see you in the morning, then." She hums, stepping out. "Goodnight."

And the door closes.

He settles into his new hammock, tugs the blanket over his head, and begins counting to his heartbeat.

He is alone.

(Finally.)

Before long, the lights beneath the door dims, and the quiet of the night settles over the building like a shroud.

Ringo shuffles out from his blanket and stuffs the pillow beneath, taking care in arranging it so it looks like a lump is still under the flimsy cover. Then with his rucksack, he methodically climbs over the boxes, tumbles out of the open window, and flees into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! I'm finally releasing this chapter. Did you know what was originally Chapter 2 had to be split into 3 whole parts bc it just keeps getting longer and longer? Yeah, I can't believe my fingers too.
> 
> Thank you for reading. I didn't expect the reception for this silly OC-fic and I'm holding off from replying to reviews until I get the chapter out as a form of motivation for myself. I hope Brulee, Broye and the brief contact with poor Katakuri here can tide you through for now. We'll meet the first of the other older kids next chapter. I'm very excited.
> 
> -
> 
> I really did enjoyed writing the parts where Ringo interacted with Brulee and Broye. I've read tons of kid fics out there and while they're all great, I could never relate to them as most fics has the character being either really good or somewhat okay with babies. 
> 
> In this chapter, I went all out on my personal feelings and experience, and self-indulgently wrote the level of awkwardness Ringo has as he struggles to interact with 2 (two!) babies. It would be nice if there're more fics of characters being hilariously bad/struggling to interact with kids.


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